


i’ll depend on you

by girlsonthetv



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, F/F, He/Him Lesbian Minato, Minato is Vulnerable, P3 Spoilers, Sickfic in the background, but before December, takes place after November boss and subsequent Events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 01:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsonthetv/pseuds/girlsonthetv
Summary: The future is scary, even for machines that supposedly can’t feel fear. Minato is sick and Aigis worries.





	i’ll depend on you

Minato coughs with his whole body, and Aigis has never seen or heard anything so deeply unsettling. Sometimes saliva comes out of his mouth when this happens, and Aigis dabs his chin with a tissue despite his protests and drops it into the wastecan, overflowing with the used-up corpses of its fellows. Minato has had influenza for three days, now, and the worst of it has mostly passed with the exception of the horrible coughing. Aigis refuses to let up in her ministrations. She hasn't left his side, and while Minato complains about it, his silent, secret smiles he thinks she doesn't see say otherwise. 

Aigis has been extra-protective of Minato lately, and though she has not said anything to him about it he knows that it is her way of atoning for what she had done under the Chairman's control. Minato reassured her a dozen times it wasn't her fault, it would never be her fault. But Aigis would carry the guilt with her for a long time. Minato was her beginning and end. His pain terrified her. To cause it was worse than death. 

Aigis offered a spoonful of chicken soup to him, but he took the spoon and bowl from her and began eating it himself. He smiled when he saw her scandalized expression. Well, as scandalized as she could look with her robotic features. "I can feed myself, Aigis. Allow me that much."

"Allow me to take care of you. Isn't that what girlfriends do?" She says it in her Playful voice tone, but she cannot keep the plea out of it completely. Aigis has become far more human than anyone had expected, and she has human desires to care for those she loves. He smiles softly. 

"I think you've met that quota over the past, what, two days." He is sick, but his voice is more or less the same as usual - quiet, a bit scratchy like it's the first time he's spoken that day. 

"Three days, and four hours." Aigis said matter-of-factly. Minato giggled, his body shaking, and then coughed again. Aigis started where she sat but Minato waved her away, managing to take some deep breaths. He flopped back into his pillow and groaned.

"I'm so sick of being sick." He mumbled. 

Aigis smiles weakly. Minato has always been underweight - a condition related to his metabolism - but he looks even skinnier plagued by illness, even weaker when he tosses and turns trying to get comfortable enough to nap. Aigis wishes she were cold, like movie robots, so she could rest her hand on his forehead like an ice pack. But she warms up over time like a laptop, and Minato’s fever has broken anyway. Nevertheless, she strokes his cheek with one of her metal hands, feels the softness of his skin. He smiles, leaning into her touch, and Aigis falters. Minato looks at her questioningly, and Aigis isn’t sure what the matter is. 

Minato was never the charismatic leader on the front lines of every battle, but he was their rock, stubborn pessimism refusing to let himself or anyone else give up. Especially when everything seemed hopeless. He was a reassuring presence and the beating heart of SEES. He accepted her into the team without a word, loved her for everything she was, loved her despite everything she wasn’t. To see her handsome, stubborn, powerful girlfriend brought low by a few germs made her profoundly upset. 

Even if they did survive the Shadow onslaughts and eradicate the Dark Hour, Minato is only human. He will grow weak again eventually and he won’t get better. Time marches on for all of us. Aigis is effectively immortal, but her body still breaks at times, and one day Minato will not be there to gently put it back together. In all likelihood, that day will be sooner than later. Aigis makes an odd choking noise, and Minato, whose eyes had fluttered shut, immediately sits up. “What’s wrong, Aigis.” It isn’t a question. Aigis smiles softly. 

“What will happen to me...what will happen to us...when you aren’t here anymore?” Aigis asks. She knows that Minato likely doesn’t have an answer, but her tone of voice pleads for at least a flimsy one. If the heart falls, everything else falls with it. Aigis is a creature of war, and if there is no more war or generals, then Aigis has no use. Nothing terrifies a robot more than being useless. 

Minato brushes her cheek with his soft hand. His expression is odd, wistful. “You’ll be fine. All of you. This isn’t something I’m hoping. It’s something I know.”

But isn’t knowing a kind of desperate hope? Aigis thought. Being a robot was pulling back the curtain on the workings of the human mind, and thoughts, knowledge were all ultimately just synapses firing, wires sparking. Despite this, Aigis nodded. 

Minato stares at the wall across from his bed. He speaks without looking at Aigis. “I don’t know if I’ll be fine, by the end of all this.” He gestures vaguely, and Aigis knows he means the end of the Dark Hour. “The more dreams I have, the more I feel like I won’t be.” He had told Aigis about his dreams he had a week before the full moon of every month - visits from a ghostly boy who called himself Pharos. 

“Don’t say things like that, Minato. Please.” Aigis said, squeezing his hand tightly. “Do you want to watch television?” 

Minato nodded, and Aigis turned on the television to a mind-numbing action flick. Minato pats the bed next to him, and Aigis wriggles under the blanket to sit next to him. She holds him loosely in her arms and he leans his head on her shoulder. For a while, the future isn’t hanging over their heads.

The closing credits are rolling when Minato next speaks. “I was always pretty neutral towards death. For as long as I can remember. The therapist I had for a while after my parents died said I was mildly suicidal, but I think I was just realistic.” Minato speaks faster as he begins to choke up. “But now...now that I have all of you, especially you, Aigis...I don’t want to die. I’m scared of dying. I never thought I would be - “ And then he’s crying into Aigis’s chest, the tears sliding down her body, and Aigis is so terrified in that moment. She gently pats Minato’s back, murmurs soothing words, kisses his head and his cheeks. How uncertain is the future if even unflappable Minato is crying? She doesn’t want to know. She kisses his neck, his ears, everywhere she can reach without taking his clothes off. Minato’s tears stop as she kisses his chapped lips. Aigis’s heart swells with happiness. 

“Let’s just agree to depend on each other for now, no matter what the future holds.” Aigis said softly. “That we will care for each other, be strong for each other. It seems to be of utmost importance, now.” 

Minato nodded. “That’s a good plan, Aigis.” 

They lay there together, Minato asleep and Aigis on rest mode, until Yukari comes up to fetch them for dinner. Mitsuru kisses Yukari as they head into the kitchen, and Minato smiles so happily, and Aigis believes that everything will be fine. At least for now. In the end, she realizes, now is all they have.

**Author's Note:**

> I love...they


End file.
